When they got to the corner of the building, Tanner leaned his head around.
Two men stood in front of a set of double doors, the orange glow of cigarettes casting a dim light over their faces. One reminded Tanner of Simon Cowell, with his boxy haircut and all-knowing smirk, and the other had eyebrows as crooked as Jack Nicholson’s. They were standing about ten yards away, probably close enough that Tanner could have simply charged them. But putting both men out of commission before one could get off a shot seemed risky at best.
He retreated from the corner and turned to Samantha.
“You’re going to have to get them to come closer,” he said in a hushed voice.
“Me?”
“We need someone cute who won’t get them all worked up. That sure isn’t me, and Duncan, well, he’s sort of a tossup.”
“Hey!” Duncan protested.
“You think I’m cute?” she said, perking up.
“Cuter than a blobfish.”
She shook her head. “You’re making up words again.”
“I am not. Blobfish are gelatinous fish-like thingies with bulbous noses and gooey pudding-like flesh.”
“Oh great,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That may be the nicest compliment you’ve ever given me.” She handed him her rifle. “What is it you need me to do?”
“Just get them to come this way.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. Run toward them and giggle the way girls do. They’ll think one of the kids got out through a window or something.”
She glared at him. “Giggle the way girls do?”
“You know what I mean.” He gave her a little nudge. “Go on.”
Samantha growled as she started around the corner. She covered about half the distance to where the men stood before they noticed her.
“Hey! How’d you get out here?” hollered Cowell.
Samantha did a little dance, putting her fingers in her ears and sticking out her tongue. She waited until they made a move toward her before skipping back around the corner.
“Come back here, young lady! Right now!” shouted Nicholson.
Cowell broke into a jog, but Nicholson was either more cautious or just a bit creakier in the knees. As Cowell rounded the corner, he ran headfirst into Tanner. For the much smaller man, it was like running into the front of a party bus, only without the party. He bounced off Tanner’s chest and fumbled to slide the rifle off his shoulder.
Tanner reached out and pulled the man’s head down as he brought a knee up into his face. There was an audible, satisfying crunch as his nose broke. Tanner drove his knee up again, this time catching him in the eye. Cowell twisted free, wobbling sideways as his brain and body debated on the merits of falling. Tanner broke the deadlock with a stiff forearm to the side of his head.
No sooner had Cowell fallen than Nicholson rounded the corner, his rifle leading the way. Tanner lunged forward, grabbed the barrel and pulled. The sling was wrapped around Nicolson’s shoulder, and the force sent him stumbling forward.
Hoping to clothesline the man, Tanner let go of the rifle and brought up his forearm. Nicholson turned at the last second, and the blow missed his throat, landing instead toward the side of his neck. The strike sent him stumbling sideways, but Nicholson spun on his lead foot and drove his head into Tanner’s gut. Before Tanner could push him away, Nicholson reached around with both hands and tried to pull his legs out from under him in a classic wrestler’s double leg cut and catch takedown. Only in this case, when he pulled at Tanner’s legs, it felt as if he were trying to uproot a pair of telephone poles.
Tanner scooped the man up at the waist and hurled him into the side of the building. Nicholson grunted and struggled to get back on his feet. As he rose, he opened his mouth to shout, but before he could make a sound, Tanner’s boot was in his face. Nicholson fell back against the wall and slid down into a crumpled heap. Tanner gave him two more stomps to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
“You done?” Samantha asked, retrieving her rifle.
“Almost.” Tanner dragged Cowell over to where Nicholson lay and gave each one final boot to the head for good measure. “There,” he said, eyeing his handiwork, “all done.” He picked up his shotgun and turned to Duncan. “Let’s move.”
Duncan nodded and hurried around the corner. When he pushed open the door to the barracks, he found people clustered at the windows, looking out. As soon as they saw him, they all began talking at once.
Tanner and Samantha pushed their way in behind him and closed the door.
Duncan brought both hands up to get everyone’s attention.
“Quiet, please.” He motioned toward Tanner and Samantha. “They’re here to help us escape.”
Duncan’s wife, Carla, edged her way through the crowd.
“Duncan,” she said in a worried voice, “what have you gotten yourself into?”
“They say they can get us out of here.”
“But if we leave, what will happen to the plant?”
His face grew long. “I don’t know. But if we stay, the Watchmen are going to make us bring the reactors back online. We can’t allow ourselves to be a part of that.”
Another operator, Drake Bottoms, stepped forward.
“Duncan’s right. If we’re not here to help, maybe the Watchmen will leave and go home.”
“But how are we possibly going to get through the fence?” said Carla. “And even if we did, where would we go?”
“We’ll get out the same way Sam and I got in,” Tanner said, pulling the pliers from his back pocket. “We’ll cut a hole. As for where you’ll go, that’s something you folks will have to figure out.”
“Many of us have friends and family living on farms near Spring City,” said Drake. “I’m sure they’d take us in.”
“But that’s nearly five miles from here!” cried a woman holding a small child. “We’ll never make it that far in the dark.”
“Five miles isn’t so far,” said Samantha. “You could make it.”
Several people started talking at once.
Tanner stepped forward. “Listen up!”
The crowd quieted.
“We don’t have time to debate the merits of the plan. Those of you who want to come have three minutes to gather a blanket and a little food and water.” He looked at his watch. “Those three minutes start… now.”
Talking gave way to action as people rushed to their bunks to strip blankets and gather supplies.
Tanner cracked open the door and peered outside.
Samantha moved to stand beside him. “Is it clear?”
“For now.”
She leaned closer and lowered her voice.
“Do you really think we can free all these people without getting caught?”
Tanner didn’t answer.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “That’s what I figured.”
They formed a human convoy, Tanner and Samantha leading the pack, and Duncan and his wife taking up the rear. Families stuck close together, constantly scanning the dark for the threat of guards. Carrying blankets and canteens, they looked like Indians being pushed ever westward to make room for white settlers.
They reached the fence line without being detected, and Tanner wasted no time in snipping away at the metal links. Having to work in darkness, as well as needing to cut a hole big enough for young and old to crawl through, slowed his progress significantly. After ten long minutes, Samantha came over and knelt beside him. He was covered in sweat.
She gave the fence a light tug.
“Almost there.”
He was breathing hard, and his hands ached as he swapped the pliers back and forth between them.
“Next time, I’ll bring bolt cutters. Or better yet, a chain saw.”
She touched his shoulder. “You did great. And it looks like we might actually—”
A shout sounded from the east, followed by another. They both turned to see flashlight beams bounci
ng in the distance.
“Crap!” Tanner rushed to snip the final few links of fencing. He pulled the flap free, revealing a hole three feet high and three feet across. Still kneeling, he tugged at Samantha’s shirt. “Sam, I need for you to get them out of here.”
“What do you mean me? You’re coming with us.”
He got to his feet, his knees reminding him of his age.
“We’ll never make it if they spot us going through the fence.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Listen, we don’t have time for this! Take these people north through the trees until you hit the highway. From there, they can follow it up to Spring City.”
“But—”
“No buts. Go back to the truck and wait for me. I’ll be along shortly.” He held out his shotgun. “Take this with you.”
“Your shotgun?”
“I’m not going to win in a gunfight. Better not to give them a reason to shoot me.”
She reluctantly took the weapon. “You promise you’ll come find me?”
“I promise. Now go! Hurry!”
Samantha motioned to the closest family as she dropped to her knees.
“Come on. Follow me.”
Tanner watched her disappear into the darkness. There were a dozen flashlights approaching, and soon there would be three times that number. The only hope the operators and their families had was if the guards found something else to chase. He started back toward the plant, shouting a few colorful obscenities as he ran.
Samantha heard Tanner trying to draw their attention, somewhat amused by the clever, albeit foul language that he seemed able to conjure up at will. She attributed it to his time in prison, although to be fair, he may have been the one doing the corrupting. It wasn’t until she was halfway across the clearing that she remembered Malina’s dire predictions. Fear stabbed at her gut, and she whirled around. But it was too late.
Tanner was already gone.
Tanner darted around a water tower and raced toward one of the white, dome-covered containment buildings. As he neared the tower, a man barreled around the corner from the opposite direction. Instead of slowing down, Tanner lowered his shoulder and ran the man over.
Before the guard had time to even register what hit him, Tanner stepped on his gut, spring boarding off as he continued around the tower.
The far side of the containment building pressed up against a long rectangular building, leaving only a narrow alleyway in between. The generator building was off to his right, its distinctive hum echoing through the night. Shouts sounded from that direction, and flashlight beams swept the walls around him. The Watchmen were closing in.
He turned left and ran alongside the rectangular building. A door lay up ahead. If he could duck inside without being noticed, he thought he might be able to give them the slip by sneaking out a back exit.
He grabbed the door handle.
Locked.
With voices approaching from both directions, Tanner leaned back and drove the flat of his foot against the door. The door bent, but the lock held. He couldn’t recall the last time a door refused to open under his weight. He kicked it again. And again. The third time was the charm, as the bolt finally broke through the jamb.
He stumbled into the room. There was no point in trying to close the door behind him. It was too mangled to fool anyone. Things had gone sideways, and he was just going to have to make the best of it.
As strong as the door was, he wouldn’t have been surprised to find a drawbridge and a moat on the other side. What he discovered wasn’t too far off the mark. The air was moist and warm, thanks to a large rectangular pool of water enclosed by a chain-link fence. A track-mounted crane hung high above it, and the only sound beyond the muted shouts of the guards was a steady gurgling emanating from the pool. The entire building was dark except for a few slender rays of moonlight filtering in through a panel of windows mounted in the ceiling.
It took Tanner only a moment to realize that he had found where they kept the spent fuel rods. No doubt the pool was filled with radioactive materials that would kill him in a hundred different ways should he get too close. He could only hope that the water prevented the radiation from reaching into the room.
He looked left and right. Metal stairs led to an elevated walkway that skirted the room, most likely to better supervise transfer operations.
Voices sounded behind him. They were coming.
His choices were to run around the pool, looking for another way out on the ground floor, climb the stairs up to the walkway and see where it led, or drop feet first into the water. Of the three, plunging into the pool probably had the best chance of throwing off his pursuers. That said, nobody in their right mind would jump into a pool filled with nuclear fuel rods.
He turned right and stomped up the metal stairs. He had barely reached the landing when a flashlight beam lit him from below. He glanced back to see three men pushing their way into the room. Others would surely be along soon enough.
“You there!” one of the men shouted, raising his rifle. “Stop!”
Tanner ignored him. So far, he had left the Watchmen with little more than bruises and perhaps a dislocated joint or two—nothing they couldn’t recover from with a few days’ rest. Given their overwhelming numbers, he hoped they would afford him the same level of restraint.
As he hurried around the walkway, he spied a set of steps leading up to a second, smaller landing. At the far end of it was a door. Based on its position, he thought that it must lead to the roof.
He bolted toward the steps, the entire framework shuddering from his thunderous stomps. Footsteps sounded behind him as guards raced up the stairs.
Tanner reached the steps, leaped onto the small landing, and tried the door handle.
Locked. Damn it!
He gave it a test bump with his shoulder. Sturdy, but not as resistant as the one downstairs.
“Stop or we’ll shoot!” a guard called from behind him.
Unwilling to leave his back exposed any longer, Tanner turned and mule-kicked the door. The jamb broke, but a hunk of the metal kept the door clinging to the frame. He watched as the men raced toward him.
He was out of time.
Rather than try to fight from the top of the small staircase, Tanner charged forward, barreling into the men. Unprepared for his sudden reversal, two of the three were knocked aside, and the third was flattened like a stalk of dried corn. He would have cleared them entirely had it not been for one of the guards snagging his ankle.
Tanner fell, one knee landing on his assailant’s face and the other crunching into the walkway with a painful twang. He immediately rolled onto his back and bicycle-kicked his legs free, dropping a few heels onto the man’s face for good measure. The Watchman to his left must have watched too many World War II movies because he dove headfirst toward Tanner like he might a German hand grenade.
His reward was two boots to the gut, and he made a loud oomph as the air was forced out of his lungs. Before the man could push free, Tanner extended his legs, rolling to the left as he did. The man hurled into the air, clattered against the metal railing, and toppled over the side. A moment later, there was a loud splash. Tanner couldn’t help but think that perhaps he had just created a real-life Dr. Manhattan.
Obviously displeased with the way the fight was going, the man to Tanner’s right brought his rifle up to his shoulder. Before he could get off a shot, Tanner rolled to his feet and shoved the muzzle aside. Refusing to accept that his rifle was more hindrance than help, the guard stepped back and attempted to wrench the weapon free. Using the man’s momentum, Tanner swept the guard’s lead foot out from under him.
The guard fell headfirst, the barrel of his rifle stabbing through a hole in the metal walkway. Frantic, he tugged at the gun. As he did, the flash suppressor snagged against the grating. Given five uninterrupted seconds, he probably could have figured out a way to wiggle it free, but Tanner wasn’t feeling generous. Instead, he stepped forw
ard and hit him in the back of the head. It was hard and ugly, a short rabbit punch to the base of his skull. The man was out before he hit the floor.
Tanner turned to find the guard who had tripped him, using the railing to pull himself back up. His nose and lips were both leaking blood thanks to Tanner’s boot, and his eyes were as glazed as Gourdough’s famous Mother Clucker donuts.
“Oh no you don’t,” Tanner said, punting the man squarely under the chin. The blow sent him back to the floor, only this time he made no move to get back up.
“He’s up there!” a voice shouted from below.
More flashlights swept across the walkway. Seconds later, a half-dozen guards charged up the stairs, fighting their way past one another.
Tanner wheeled around and ran full tilt at the small door atop the landing. Running into a door was always risky, even after it had been softened with a couple of good kicks. If it managed to hold up to the charge, the would-be door buster was left with a dislocated shoulder, or worse.
“Make way!”
The door broke open, and he stumbled out onto the roof, nearly falling as he slid across a thin layer of white gravel. He looked left and right. There were three other doors identical to the one he’d just burst through, as well as a handful of large air-handling units, none of them currently operational.
He eyed the other doors. There was little chance that any of them were unlocked, and pulling a door open was much harder than kicking it in. The air handlers might offer a bit of concealment, but it would be short-lived. If he hid on the roof, they would find him. It was as simple as that.
Where then? He wanted to believe there was a way to escape. He needed to believe it.
The reactor containment silos stood to either side of the roof, and he could barely make out a ladder running up the side of the tower to the east. He dashed over to the edge of the roof for a better look.
Judging distance accurately in the daytime was hard enough. Judging it at night while standing atop a roof with men closing in was damn near impossible. He eyed the ladder. Twenty feet away? Thirty? In addition to the distance, the ladder was not directly in line with him, which meant that he would be coming in at an angle. Doable for an eighty-pound Chinese acrobat; maybe not so much for a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound escaped convict.
Dark Days Page 17